The usual suspects are up to no good again. WaPo Link.
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said yesterday that under a new Vatican directive on homosexuality, men with a lasting attraction to members of the same sex can still be ordained as priests, as long as they are not "consumed by" their sexual orientation.
Bishop William S. Skylstad's flexible interpretation of the document, which was officially issued in Rome yesterday, was sharply at odds with the position of some other U.S. bishops. They said the Vatican intended to bar all men who have had more than a fleeting, adolescent brush with homosexuality. . . .
Several prelates, including Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, indicated that they will continue to ordain seminarians regardless of sexual orientation, as long as the candidates are committed to live in celibacy and to uphold church teachings.
Skylstad took a similar approach. He said the barring of men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" refers to those who are "principally defined by" or whose "primary identification" is their sexual orientation. Although the document does not say so, he said, the same implicitly applies to men who have deep-seated heterosexual impulses.
"Absolutely, it cuts both ways. . . . I think if the orientation dominates one's personality, whether that be homosexual or heterosexual," then the candidate is not suitable for ordination, Skylstad said.
This, of course, is idiocy and wishful thinking. The document was written for homosexuals. The mental gymnastics of the Skylstads and McCarricks bring the entire American Church into disrepute and confuse the faithful. But no matter, they have their preferences, and when those preferences clash with Rome, their preferences win.
The WaPo article, to its credit, recognizes the intellectual depravity of Skylstad. From the conclusion:
The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the conservative Catholic journal First Things, said that "human nature being what it is, those who want to evade the clear statement of the instruction will have ample opportunities to seek loopholes, evasions and rationalizations."
The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and generally a liberal commentator on church affairs, agreed.
"Over the next few months we will hear from plenty of canon lawyers and theologians and bishops, as we have already, arguing, out of a genuine and compassionate desire to help the church continue to accept celibate gay men into the priesthood, that the document needs to be interpreted in the most positive light possible," he said.
"But it is impossible, after reading the Instruction, to escape the fact that when the Vatican says men with 'deep-seated homosexual tendencies,' it means what it says."
Aside: The article also mentions that the directive will be applied differently in the various diocese. That's sad, but true, and with the Skylstads of America, homosexuals who want to become priests know where they can go, just as they know what states will marry them. Maybe there'll be a boom in vocations in those renegade dioceses. I look forward (in a grimacing way) to seeing the results in ten years.
